Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

[Rajiv]

Keith Olbermann did another Special Comment last night and directed his anger at McCain (video below).

If McCain implodes before the convention, could Republicans get a new candidate or are they stuck with him no matter what?

It just seems like he's getting deeper and deeper into the muck - and while that is obviously excellent for Democrats, it's hard to imagine the Republican Machine sitting by and saying, "Oh well, we'll get 'em next time."

[ax]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

Keith Olbermann did another Special Comment last night and directed his anger at McCain (video below).

If McCain implodes before the convention, could Republicans get a new candidate or are they stuck with him no matter what?

It just seems like he's getting deeper and deeper into the muck - and while that is obviously excellent for Democrats, it's hard to imagine the Republican Machine sitting by and saying, "Oh well, we'll get 'em next time."

Can we please not use sports anchors as credible news sources? Olbermann is awful, and takes himself way too seriously while pretending that he's "too good" for sports, yet continues to show up frequently at sporting events and on shows...

[krakknisse]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

Can we please not use sports anchors as credible news sources? Olbermann is awful, and takes himself way too seriously while pretending that he's "too good" for sports, yet continues to show up frequently at sporting events and on shows...

That, my friend, is an ad hominen attack - look up the link, you may find it illuminating. I'm sure you have interesting opinions on McCain, Iraq policy and the investment repercussions of those issues. I now know that Olbermann is a "sports interested" anchor, but I'm not particularly illuminated on any other issues.

FWIW, I found it interesting that an attack this strong in tone came on MSNBCs most popular show. MSNBC is not an insignificant media outlet. I believe there is significant and rising tension in the US polity, and this attack is evidence of that. The specifics of the US political response to the current crisis, most especially the redistributional elements, are critically dependent on the perceptions of and the political strengths of various fractions. Which is why I think the initial post in this thread was quite interesting.

Now, please if I may kindly ask you, ax - what is your analysis?

[ax]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

K, in response:

Self-analysis-I am well read enough to know what an ad hominem attack is. With that said, my personal bias against Olbermann as ever being viewed as a legitimate source of informataion or informative opinion leaves me guilty as charged.

Olbermann analysis: Pushed by his GE masters to invoke the "strong tone" you refer to, and to move from glib sarcasm to irreverent hounding of McCain. His horrors of war anecdotes don't ring true.

Chart analysis: Right-wing Fox is killing everyone. Look for continued support of Obama from The General...(affectionate moniker of GE employees for the company).

[krakknisse]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

K, in response:

Self-analysis-I am well read enough to know what an ad hominem attack is. With that said, my personal bias against Olbermann as ever being viewed as a legitimate source of informataion or informative opinion leaves me guilty as charged.

Olbermann analysis: Pushed by his GE masters to invoke the "strong tone" you refer to, and to move from glib sarcasm to irreverent hounding of McCain. His horrors of war anecdotes don't ring true.

Chart analysis: Right-wing Fox is killing everyone. Look for continued support of Obama from The General...(affectionate moniker of GE employees for the company).

ax: There's precisely the analysis that helps me - no longer a US resident, I don't have the on-the ground insights. I thought the tone was strong, and I take it that your "doesn't ring true" assessment reflects that on-the ground insight. Commercial motivations could explain part of the tone.

But since we're on to it - don't you see increasing tensions over there? There is talk of the Republicans imploding. The Republicans are unrecognizable (to me) - compare them with the 1994 "revolution". Granted, Ron Palu didn't get far. But there are some that say the Republicans are aging significantly, with little young blood in terms of membership and activities. To me, this credit crisis hasn't even started. When TS really HTF, watch out for the torch-and-pitchfork crowds. The tone of Olbermann's commentary struck me as reaching out to the potential pitchforkers.

[Rajiv]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

You should l;ook at the following articles

The Ratings Mirage
Why Fox has higher ratings--when CNN has more viewers (2004)

After exposure to countless similar stories published since January 2002, when Fox was reported to have surpassed CNN in the Nielsen ratings, one might naturally conclude that Fox has more viewers than CNN .

But it's not true. On any given day, more people typically tune to CNN than to Fox .

So what are the media reports talking about? With few exceptions, stories about the media business report a single number for ratings (often expressed two different ways--as "points" or "share"). This number is often presented as if it were the result of a popularity contest or a democratic vote. But it is actually the average number of viewers watching a station or a show in a typical minute, based on Nielsen Media Research's monitoring of thousands of households.

The average is arrived at by counting viewers every minute. Heavy viewers--those who tune in to a station and linger there--have a greater impact, as they can be counted multiple times as they watch throughout the day.

When an outlet reports that CNN is trailing Fox , they are almost invariably using this average tally, which Fox has been winning for the past two years. For the year 2003, Nielsen's average daily ratings show Fox beating CNN 1.02 million viewers to 665,000.

But there is another important number collected by Nielsen (though only made available to the firm's clients) that tells another story. This is the "cume," the cumulative total number of viewers who watch a channel for at least six minutes during a given day. Unlike the average ratings number the media usually report, this number gives the same weight to the light viewer, who tunes in for a brief time, as it does to the heavy viewer.

How can CNN have more total viewers when Fox has such a commanding lead in average viewers? Conventional industry wisdom is that CNN viewers tune in briefly to catch up on news and headlines, while Fox viewers watch longer for the opinion and personality-driven programming. Because the smaller total number of Fox viewers are watching more hours, they show up in the ratings as a higher average number of viewers.

and "Why Fox News Channel Is An Industry Joke"

Relying on the Fox News Channel as your only source of news is like using MAD Magazine as a legitimate source of news. The Fox News Channel's reporting style is so biased and skewed that trying to obtain any real information from a news report is quite challenging. Fox News is a joke because it provides info-tainment rather than reality-based news coverage. Fox News Channel is a "news channel" in name only. The network is what L.A. Times Editor John S. Carroll calls "pseudojournalism."

Although TV news in general is sensationalist, Fox News has descended so far from objective journalism that it only provides small scraps of actual information. Like Ishmael in Herman Melville's Moby Dick or Nick in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Fox News is a modern day example of the "unreliable narrator." Fox News places an acute spin in nearly every story it presents and in some cases presents untruths as truth. Fox News Channel is a running commentary on the news rather than traditional objective reporting. To its credit, the network's style of entertainment-journalism has resulted in a steady increase of viewers.
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"All across America, there are offices that resemble newsrooms, and in those offices there are people who resemble journalists, but they are not engaged in journalism. It is not journalism because it does not regard the reader — or, in the case of broadcasting, the listener, or the viewer — as a master to be served," said Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll in a Lecture on Ethics delivered at The University of Oregon in May 2004.

"To the contrary," he said, "it regards its audience with a cold cynicism. In this realm of pseudo-journalism, the audience is something to be manipulated. And when the audience is misled, no one in the pseudo-newsroom ever offers a peep of protest."

Carroll goes on to say that journalists of the past such as "Lippmann, Reston, Murrow, Sevareid and others . . . are still held in high regard. They were, foremost, journalists, not entertainers or marketers. Their opinions were rigorously grounded in fact. It was the truthfulness of these commentators — their sheer intellectual honesty — that causes their names to endure. Today, the credibility painstakingly earned by past journalists lends an unearned legitimacy to the new generation of talk show hosts. Cloaked deceptively in the mantle of journalism, today's opinion-brokers are playing a nasty Halloween prank on the public, and indeed on journalism itself."

"All across America, there are offices that resemble newsrooms, and in those offices there are people who resemble journalists, but they are not engaged in journalism. It is not journalism because it does not regard the reader — or, in the case of broadcasting, the listener, or the viewer — as a master to be served," said Los Angeles Times Editor John S. Carroll in a Lecture on Ethics delivered at The University of Oregon in May 2004.

"To the contrary," he said, "it regards its audience with a cold cynicism. In this realm of pseudo-journalism, the audience is something to be manipulated. And when the audience is misled, no one in the pseudo-newsroom ever offers a peep of protest."

Carroll goes on to say that journalists of the past such as "Lippmann, Reston, Murrow, Sevareid and others . . . are still held in high regard. They were, foremost, journalists, not entertainers or marketers. Their opinions were rigorously grounded in fact. It was the truthfulness of these commentators — their sheer intellectual honesty — that causes their names to endure. Today, the credibility painstakingly earned by past journalists lends an unearned legitimacy to the new generation of talk show hosts. Cloaked deceptively in the mantle of journalism, today's opinion-brokers are playing a nasty Halloween prank on the public, and indeed on journalism itself."
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One often-cited research study about the faulty news coverage of Fox News is from the University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) Research Center. Released in October 2003 and titled "Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War," the researchers from Knowledge Networks in Menlo Park, Calif. conducted a poll with nearly 10,000 respondents. The study was to see the frequency of misperceptions concerning the news coverage on the Iraq War. The questions focused on whether Iraq was involved with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, whether Iraq was supporting al-Qaeda terrorists, whether weapons of mass destruction have been found, and whether world opinion was for or against the U.S. invading Iraq. The reality was that no links between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda terrorists have ever surfaced and no weapons of mass destruction have been found. In general, world opinion about the U.S. invasion of Iraq is overwhelmingly negative or non-supportive.

The study found that nearly two-thirds of Americans had vast misperceptions about the war. For example, in one poll, 68% said they believed that Iraq played an instrumental role in 9/11. "In the run-up to the war with Iraq and in the postwar period, a significant portion of the American public has held a number of misperceptions that have played a key role in generating and maintaining approval for the decision to go to war," stated the study.

The study also noted that "the extent of Americans' misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions."

The entire article is well worth reading

[Guest]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

Fox News afflicts professional journalism like hemorrhoids afflict an already ailing man. And there is a curious resemblance in their excreta. American mainstream journalism has a great deal of rot in it's method today. It used to be among the best in the world, and now it is a sorry shadow of what it was forty years ago.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Olbermann to McCain on our troops: "You’ve sold them all out, Senator. You."

Fox News afflicts professional journalism like hemorrhoids afflict an already ailing man. And there is a curious resemblance in their excreta. American mainstream journalism has a great deal of rot in it's method today. It used to be among the best in the world, and now it is a sorry shadow of what it was forty years ago.

Is this because of the news outlet or because of the level of intelligence of those with sight, hearing, and willingness to spend?